


How The West Fell To Thee, Oh Faithless Wanderer

by Tim Willems (MrMobil123)



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Caesar's Legion, Epic, NCR | New California Republic, Post-Apocalypse, War, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 23:23:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14779260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMobil123/pseuds/Tim%20Willems
Summary: The stage is set. The players are assembled. They stand in all of their proper places, ready for the play, but not aware that they are a part of it yet.The Bear and the Bull still snarl and stare across the damn. Two ideologys, dangerously opposed to one another. With guns and bullets and swaths of soldier ready to do violence, they fear nothing but each other. Soon, their soldiers and their bombs will bring great ruin to any caught in the middle.But New Vegas, the glimmering city, still stands free. Mr House watches from atop his glittering tower, with vast, sweeping plans in his head. Three powerful casino family's and an army of rehabilitated tribals and police robots ensure no attempts at his city, his masterpiece.And in a little graveyard in the desert, a courier with shifting eyes and bright red hair struggles against death in a shallow grave. Benny Gecko, his murderer, chairman of the tops and would be revolutionary makes his way home to New Vegas. He is not a stupid man, he knows that the Mojave is a powder keg. But he never realised that he had lit the fuse to set it off until it was to late to stop it.





	How The West Fell To Thee, Oh Faithless Wanderer

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the songs. I personally have always really like to have music that went along with the things I read and write, and so I have done the same thing for this story I am writing now. I knew from pretty early on that I was going to incorporate music into this in some way, but I wasn't sure how, and eventually I decided that I would just throw the lyrics I to the story itself, along with a title of the songs.
> 
> Each song I choose I tend to choose with a specific scene in mind, and I have chosen to place them similarly. Each time the lyrics pop up, it's as if that was the music queue in a movie. I've also tried to find music that I think fits with my character, Jimmy Barrow, aka Courier Six. As a person, he is very Machiavellian and rather shifty and untrustworthy. So I tried to pick songs that went along with his character traits, and how his brain would sound if you could put it into music. So, the end result was a lot of creepy, dark americana music. If that is not personally your thing, that is fine, but I mention this because to get a better idea of how the story is being told and how the lyrics relate to where they appear, I feel it is best to actually listen to the song itself in the moment it's lyrics appear, as if it's a soundtrack.

It was cold, and dark, the only light an old kerosene lamp, casting a sickly yellow light over the little graveyard on the hill. Men stood, in a tight little circle, talking quietly amongst themselves. One stood out from the others, watching the glow in the distance, studying the details of the spindley building that rose triumphantly above the rest. He wore a checkered suit, the kind that most would look at and instantly dismiss him as tacky and cheap for wearing it. But when they looked into his eyes they saw that there was a lot more going on in his head. You could practically see the cogs turn in his brain, as he worked out all the plans and ideals that flowed through him, manipulating and playing off of all the pieces he was moving around the chessboard. Benny Gecko, Chairman, playboy, tactician, was despite appearances not a man who took things lightly. In his ears rang the sound of the shovel, that one of his companions was shoving unceremoniously into the earth behind him, lifting dirt from the ground, and piling it behind him. It was a grave they were digging, for the man who lay nearby, by the lamp.

The group had caught up with the man who now lay unconscious just a little ways away. He had ridden on a rad-steed, his head high and proud, outlined triumphantly in the late afternoon, early evening sun. They had stood waiting by the side of the road, by a dead brahmin, and waved him down as if they were looking for help. Just a caravan whos Brahmin was not the best choice for their route, that was all. Nothing to worry about here sir, please just help us.

The courier, on his steed, had stopped just like they wanted, and watched them suspiciously, his green mischievous eyes flicking between Benny and the thuggish looking friends, waiting for someone to make a move. But none of them had done anything, just asked for some water, and for him to take a message back to the nearest little town to send help. They could wait about a day. It would be no problem.

It had taken some convincing, but the courier had eventually relented, and turned his rad-steed back the way he had come, flashing them all with a big, beautiful pistol. It was the only nice thing he had. His boots were worn, his shirt looked pre war, and his had appeared to have been stomped on on multiple occasions. But that pistol was excellent, clean, and showy next to the row of bullets on his belt.

As soon as the couriers back was turned though, one of the thuggish companions of Benny, a true to life Great Khan, hired just for the task ahead, stepped forward deftly with a club, and brought it to the couriers leg with all the force he could muster. The courier had cried out in pain, and reached his hand for his pistol, but before he could pull it from its holster, another of the Khans had come quickly to his friends aid, and crushed the couriers hand around his pistol with a hammer, the sound of breaking fingers snapping sickly in the evening quiet, the couriers cry coming again, high and surprised and viciously angry. A Khan clawed his hands around the couriers belt, and pulled him from his saddle, dragging him to the ground and slapping the rad-steeds haunches, scaring him off in a dead run into the desert. The courier had tried to stand, but before he could get far the other Khans had gathered quickly around him, punching and kicking, forcing him into the sand. He curled, trying to protect his head, but watched constantly for a way out, his quick, mischievous eyes flicking frantically from side to side, looking for the chance to escape, until finally one of the Khans boots had caught him in the chin. His head jerked back, his hat finally coming free from his head, revealing fiery red hair beneath. When the Khans saw that his head was vulnerable, the one with the billy club took his chance, and swatted at his head until he stopped moving.

Benny stood away from the violence, watching carefully, until the man was unconscious. The Khans stepped away, breathing heavily, and Benny inhaled carefully on his cigarette. Some of his men looked at him for direction, but he never said a word. Flicking his cigarette to the ground, he ambled over to the courier, who lay on his side like a ragdoll. Benny pushed his foot into the unconscious man's hip, turning him to his back, and looking at the mans face. It was a sharp face, thin and proud, the open mouth revealing a missing canine tooth on the top left. As Benny studied the man before him, he couldn't help but feel he was a hick, from some nowhere settlement with dirty family and dirty ways. But the way he had looked at them when they were still standing by the road as stranded caravaners revealed a careful, dangerous intelligence.

Benny leaned over and patted the man up and down, looking for the package, and pulling it from the man's pocket. He lay it carefully by the man's foot, before reaching down and taking the beautiful pistol from its holster, and pitching it unceremoniously off the road and into the shrubs. He leaned down again, and carefully took out each and every bullet that lined the man's belt, before standing again and dropping them in one of the Khans hands, leaving the man to distribute them amongst his friends.

“Tie him up,” said Benny, picking up the package once again and beginning to open it, “and let's get going.” He pulled the brown paper from the little box he held, carefully opening its lid. Inside, resting gently on tissue paper like it was Tiffanys silver, lay a poker chip, all platinum, and gleaming in the red setting sun.

“You got what you were after, so pay up,” said one of the Khans, coming to stand by Benny’s side.

“Your crying in the rain, palie,” he responded.

“Hey, looks like someone's waking up over here.”

Benny turned, sticking a new cigarette into his lips and lighting it, watching the man, the Courier, as he sat up again in sand. He looked around blearily, like a baby born into a new world.

“Guess it's time to cash out,” said Benny, his face grim.

“Can we just get this over with,” said one of the Khans, the one who seemed like he was the leader.

Benny held up a finger authoritatively, looking the courier in the eye. “Maybe Khans kill people without looking ‘em in the face, but I ain't a fink. . . dig?” He looked sideways at the Khan who had spoken to him, his voice condescending, his gaze unconcerned with the other man's opinion of him. He looked back at the courier, whose eyes were starting to focus, his tied fists beginning to clench, his mouth tight and cruel. Benny’s gaze never even faltered as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the platinum chip.

“You’ve made your last delivery kid,” he said, before putting the chip back into his pocket and fishing in his coat for his gun. He pulled it out from the holster under his arm, levelling it casually and comfortably at the head of the bound man in front of him. “Sorry you got mixed up in this scene.”

He made sure not to show it, but in his mid he was surprised by the response of the courier. The man in front of him did nothing, never taking his eyes from Bennys, looking into his face hard and rough and unafraid.

“From where you're kneeling, It must seem like an 18 karat run of bad luck,” he continued, blase and carefully uninterested. “But the truth is, the game was rigged from the start.”

The courier still did not respond, just continued to stare Benny in the face, and Benny could practically see the cogs turning in the other man's head, as he made plans, worked out the chessboard in front of him. As he watched the Courier, he felt a sudden twinge of discomfort. The other man reminded him far to much of himself, and so he pulled the trigger.

***

_Two beasts, young now but planning grand things. The River and the Dam, dividers of dangerous ideologies. The man in the high place. A nun and a mystic at the fork in the road. A man who will die, and live in a monsters mouth. 3 grand tribes, atop the glittering city. The man who burned.. The philosophers who have corrupted themselves. A grand vault, with treasures abounding. And the man who dreams, to burn others_.

The three figures, the man in the trenchcoat, the woman in the burlesque clothes, and the handsome purebred dog, all drifted silently away, and young James Henry Barrow, Jimmy to most, Henry to his father, with the bright red hair and the mischief in his eyes died quickly and painlessly, after being shot twice in the head.

***

***  
Those Poor Bastards - The Dust Storm

There's a dust storm forming in the sky,  
Blowin down the road about twelve feet high  
It's tearin up my lungs, it burns my eyes  
Take of your dress, put on your face,  
I'm feeling wild

We’ll spend the dough your savin in that jar  
Ignore the screams a-comin from the car  
Let's forget we’re miserable and poor  
Take off your face, put on your dress  
I'm feeling wild

How many hours do I have left with you?  
Before old Revelations does come true  
We’ve gotta find ourselves something to do  
Take off your dress, put on your face  
I'm feeling wild

You know the shed behind old Millers pond?  
I stole the key last time he sold us corn  
Blood within it shines so fucking warm  
Take off your face, put on your dress  
I'm feeling wild

There's a dust storm forming in the sky  
Blowin down the road ‘about twelve feet high  
It's tearin up my lungs it burns my eyes  
Take off your dress, put on your face  
It's tearin up my lungs, it burns my eyes  
Take off that dress, put on your face  
Take off that dress, put on your face  
I'm feeling wild  
I'm feeling wild  
I'm feeling wild. . .

***

**Author's Note:**

> And there we have it folks, chapter one of How The West Fell To Thee, Oh Faithless Wanderer. I'll try and make chapter two a little longer as Jimmy wakes from his coma and begins the recovery process in the good town of Goodsprings.


End file.
